Friday, May 23, 2014

Over the next few days I kept looking at the house in the bottom left hand corner and becoming increasingly displeased. The windows were simply "there", they were blending in too much and frankly, just weren't living up to my expectations. It looked dull, unimpressed and, well, rather robotic! I mean, really, doesn't the expression on the side of that house remind you of Rosie, the robot maid on The Jetsons? Simple fix. I added shutters a couple of days ago made from the same purple homespun as the door. I am now happy-er.

Better???

I did mention before, I think, that all my fabric selections are not homespuns.

The striped side of the house is something else entirely, and I'm not recalling the details, other than it is woven but has an interesting body and texture.

The chimneys on this house are constructed with the textured woven stripe in wine from the Primitive Rustic Collection by Diamond Textiles. "Wine" stands for brown with a purple-ish hue to it in the right light. If you've not seen these, I encourage you to seek them out...they work beautifully with the homespuns & with diawabos...only imagination, or pocketbook, will limit you. They are more on the spendy side, but if you treat yourself to just a little, and parcel them out in special ways, you won't mind the cost a bit!

And now for this month...

This month I've snuck in some flannels and another precious piece of textured woven stripe.

These chimneys are a sort of textured crinkly piece of fabric that I purchased somewhere a couple of years ago...perhaps for a chicken nest or something?

Can you spot them?

I think these windows are asking for some hand-stitched panes to integrate them into the darker walls.

The soft olive grey window print in this house makes me think of the old double hung windows that have a leaded design in the upper window only, so I did a small amount of fussing around to get them that way.

for keeping us moving along! Go over and visit, she'll be posting her houses and those of others tonight or tomorrow.

I also wanted to add that I searched & got my copy of Blackbird Designs Home Sweet Home book for that pretty patriotic quilt I posted about on the 8th. Surprisingly, this gorgeous quilt is sort of buried toward the back of the book with a photo that doesn't do it the justice that those I found on Pinterest did. It is a wonderful book...lots of fun and inspiration lives between it's covers!

Lastly, I cannot end this post, without yesterdays tears welling back up in my eyes, the lump in my throat returning or without mentioning, how very much we love our dear friends,

Lynn & Joe Wilder.

Our hearts are heavy at the news of the sudden loss of your beautiful, bright, happy, loving, Zinnie. You're in our hearts and on our minds.

I can, but I can't, begin the fathom the loss you feel and the void she has left.

It is an unbearable thing to even think of, knowing that you have loved your sweet girl as deeply as we have loved our little ball of fluff.

Zinnie was & will always be your baby girl, so loved, so sweet,

and so fortunate to have been loved by you.

Dearest Princess Zinnie, We were blessed to spend a wonderful weekend with you, we miss you and hope that in Heaven you've found all the treats, and balls and squeak toys...

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Further research indicates that this is a design from an older Blackbird Designs book, but I've not been able to figure out which book yet. More sleuthing to do!

*****UPDATE TO THE UPDATE*****

In my tired state of mind last night, I neglected to say that my sleuthing had also uncovered that, consistently, photos and posts told me the name of this quilt is "Old Glory". The last thing I did before shutting my tablet off last night was look at an online page of the covers of all the Blackbird Designs Quilts...one cover stuck out in my mind as a likely candidate based on the cover quilt and title. I pulled the covers up and hoped that I might wake to a response to one of my emails or a new blog comment, someone out there has to know which book this quilt is in!

I have to say, I love Blackbird Designs quilts and I have to say I am most frustrated by Blackbird Designs online information! I found photos on Blackbird Designs blog and confirmation that the design is called Old Glory, but, they neglected to say which book it was from in both places. I found a commenter on one posting who was pleading and as frustrated as I in trying to figure out which book to find it in. Unfortunately, that post was from 2011 & the commenter was a no-reply reader, so I was unable to contact her to find out if she'd ever tracked it down. A website for Blackbird Designs has always been next to impossible to access and leans more toward their cross-stitch line & Kansas City Star website doesn't provide much more than the cover photo.

This is not the first time I've spent a day or more trying to figure out which book I might find one of their exquisite quilts in! Sometimes Amazon saves me with one of their listings that gives you the opportunity to look inside, but not in this case.

SO! This morning I wish to Thank CHRISTINE!!! She came to my rescue, lowered my heartrate & left me a comment overnight telling me that Old Glory is in the Blackbird Designs Book, Home Sweet Home. The very book I suspected it might be in as I went off to Dreamland!

Christine! I'm sending you THREE CHEERS! A couple of HURRAHS! The BIGGEST, SQUEEZIEST HUG I can muster this morning and MY UNDYING GRATITUDE!

Perhaps we should do a quilt along once we both have the book in our possession!

I can now begin looking for a copy of Home Sweet Home in a more relaxed manner, flip my obsessed online sleuthing switch off, and concentrate on what's on my sewing machine...cuz I promised myself that SOMETHING was going to hit the fan, uh, finished stack before I return to work next week!